Feltman’s article on Ethiopia’s current situation was just a hell-bent attempt to conceal TPLF’s high crimes and stocking new hostilities in the Horn of Africa
BY MIHRET WELDU | OPINION
The former U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman published an article on December 26, 2022, on the recent political developments in Northern Ethiopia following the November 2 peace agreement made between the Federal Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front.
Although portrayed to address the current situation in the country in relation to the prospect of peace, the content of the article, however, was clearly intended to vilify Eritrea; a scrupulous attempt to scapegoat the neighboring country for TPLF’s culpability of waging a war that has devastated the Tigray region and Ethiopia.
The article even cited Eritrea more times than the two main stakeholders, the Ethiopian Federal government and TPLF combined.
It is worth recalling that in his short-lived tenure as special envoy to the region, Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman was unable to successfully conduct his assignment for his twisted diplomatic approach in the conflict. Indeed, his current defamatory accounts against Eritrea in the magazine Foreign Affairs are also a hell-bent attempt to conceal the TPLF’s high crimes and give a sense of authenticity to their wailing as victims – a weary tactic the insurgent group has up their sleeve whenever they face defeat in the battlefields.
Throughout the script, he branded Eritrea as “the spoiler” bearing the role of potentially prolonging the conflict, which clearly confirms the lack of need from his side to accept the fundamentals of the conflict in Ethiopia. As stated before on many occasions, the war was unnecessarily waged by the TPLF leaders to serve their superfluous escapade and the interest of their dispatchers in the region.
Moreover, while launching pre-mediated attacks against the Ethiopian government, they too openly declared their secessionist pipedreams that amassed territory from Eritrea. Be that as it may, Feltman predictably chose Eritrea to be the fall-guy, stating it poses a potential threat to Ethiopia as a nation and branded it rather maliciously as a regional destabilizer while admitting the TPLF indeed started the war.
In such perspective, his article was surely sheer derogatory and aspires exclusively to project Eritrea as a pestering country in the region of the horn of Africa, which insinuates that peace and stability in Ethiopia are not what Eritrea is after. Even more astonishing, he referred to the TPLF-led Ethiopia as “stable” that had a role in maintaining authority in the horn of Africa; a very twisted testimonial that could not mislead armchair readers.
The fact of the matter is, Ethiopia at the moment is reaping the bitter fruit that the TPLF sowed during its stay in power. The policy of ethnic-based federalism pursued by the TPLF group in their 27 years old of controversial leadership was essentially rooted in the polarization of one ethnic group against another, in the process making Ethiopia a country that has been sitting on a ticking time bomb, making it definitely “not stable” if not the most unstable African country.
Going back to that period, not only Ethiopia but the whole region of the horn of Africa was endangered by policies and futile decisions made by the group. Eritrea in particular has been exposed to an existential threat.
The TPLF’s “war against terrorism” adventure in Somalia, the 1998-2000 border war with Eritrea and its subsequent refusal of the EEBC ruling in 2002, and the agenda of regime change in Asmara are some of the threats that amount to a destabilizing role they played to a tee.
Indeed, certain powers mainly US’s role in the war also remains to be detrimental, making it the major spoiler with direct involvement to alter the outcome of the war in favor of the TPLF at the cost of peace for the Ethiopian people and stability for the region as a whole, only to maintain their quest for dominance in the region.
All things considered, however, it does not take a genius to cotton on Mr. Feltman’s attempt to disseminate deceitful indications to cast the region away in a perpetual conflict by stoking hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea and halt the promising prospect of peace and prosperity initiated by both countries in 2018.
Moreover, as stated above, as his mission was to salvage what is an obedient client in TPLF, his current defamatory accounts on Eritrea and calumniating its President are foreseeable and unbecoming of a seasoned diplomat showing his tunnel vision of reality.
